


And you became like the coffee, in the deliciousness, and the bitterness and the addiction.

by Rumaan



Category: SKAM (Spain)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Forbidden Love, Mutual Pining, Religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Amira didn't mean to fall for her best friend's brother.
Relationships: Amira Naybet/Dani Soto Peña
Comments: 16
Kudos: 51





	And you became like the coffee, in the deliciousness, and the bitterness and the addiction.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ifwallscouldspeak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwallscouldspeak/gifts).



> This is written for the amazing @ifwallscouldspeak for the Yousana Exchange. 
> 
> It's my take on what I would want to happen if the show went down an Amira/Dani love story and gives me the Muslim love story that I've been craving since OG Skam decided to make Yousef non-Muslim or non-practicising and other remakes followed. This is love story written by a Muslim and primarily for other Muslims/other people who want a Muslim love story for Amira. If that's not your thing then it's fine but please don't write me a comment about how much you disagree etc.
> 
> The title is from the Mahmoud Darwish poem, Like the Coffee.

Amira still wasn’t sure how it happened. One minute she’d been happy to eat all of Dani’s muffins and tease him endlessly with Cris and the next her heart beat would beat so loudly when he was around that it was all she could hear in her ears. She blamed the trip back to Cris’ home village, Zaorejas - the one where she and Dani had been pushed together because Cris and Joana were so in love that it gave you a toothache to be around them. Not that she wasn’t happy for Cris. No, Cris deserved all the happiness that she could get and there was no doubt that Joana brought a stabilising effect into Cris’ life. Gone was her wild weekend behaviour and failures to remember her plans and her sometimes lapses into being a bit of a dick. Happy-in-love Cris was a delight to be around. 

However, Amira wasn’t necessarily a delight right now and it something newly perceptive Cris was picking up on.

“What’s with you today? You’ve been looking forward to this trip to the theme park for weeks and now we’re here you’re putting up that fiercely cheerful facade you get when there’s something bothering you?”

“No, I’m not,” she replied with a defensive scowl.

Cris rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ve only known you since we both wore pigtails and fought over the pink crayon, but yeah, sure, think you can lie to me.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Cris frowned a little and Amira inwardly sighed. She didn’t like not being able to be honest with her best friend - the one person she had always trusted - but it’s not like she could go to her with this. How could she tell Cris that she was a little bit in love with her big brother and she could do nothing with those feelings because Dani wasn’t Muslim.

“Fine! Keep up the pretence but don’t think you have me fooled because you don’t. I’ve noticed all kinds of things, Amy. Like how you don’t come over anymore. Not until you know it’s just me home. You haven’t even touched the muffins my mum always make sure she bakes extra because you love them so much.”

Amira suppressed a wince. She didn’t want Cris to think there was anything wrong between them. She knew the hurt that caused. 

“It’s nothing with you, I promise,” she said as reassuring as possible. “I’m just trying to get a handle on some things.”

“And you can’t tell me about them?”

“I’m struggling to tell myself about them.”

And it was true. She was struggling to face up to what her dumb little heart wanted. How could she even possibly fall in love with Dani? The dopey oaf she had always joked about marrying but had never seriously meant any of it. He wasn’t possible. He wasn’t for her. She knew it and understood why but her heart broke anyway. 

Cris flung a comforting arm around her shoulder and said, “I know all about that. But don’t keep this bottled up for too long. You have to talk to someone about it. Obviously, I think that person should be me but I won’t blame you if it’s not. But, please, talk to someone.”

The rush of emotion that poured through her at Cris’ words had tears welling up in her eyes. She wished more than anything that she could talk her feelings through with Cris, but there were some things that her best friend didn’t understand and they mainly had to do with religion and how her faith always came first. Then it was the fact that it was _Dani_ she would be talking about. How would Cris take the news of her crush? Surely, she was crossing a boundary. 

\-------

“ _Assalamu wa’alaykum. Labas, habiba?_ ” Jamilla said with a smile as she came into the front room. 

Since her _kebt kitab_ with her brother over the summer, Jamilla was in their house more often. It was nice for Amira because she got to have a girl around more and she didn’t feel quite so outnumbered, especially as Jamilla was good at keeping Achaf in check which only left Soufiane to be a massive pain in her ass.

_“Labas, alhamdulillah._ _Labas?_ ”

“ _Alhamdulillah._ ”

Jamilla tilted her head and looked quizzically at her. “You okay, Mimi? You’ve been quiet for a couple of weeks now. You didn’t even laugh when Soufiane screamed at that spider in the bathroom the other day.”

Amira was about to automatically claim that she fine when she stopped. Her feelings were beginning to eat her up inside and she was starting to feel that she would explode if she didn’t talk to someone soon. Perhaps this was her opportunity to get her emotions out and to get some perspective. 

Peering over Jamilla’s shoulder, Amira said, “Where’s Achraf?”

“Gone to play football with Soufiane and the boys. It’s just us and your mum in the house and she’s gone for a nap.”

Now was the perfect time then. They had the house to themselves and she could get some help with her problem. 

Pulling in a deep breath, Amira leaned forwards and said quietly, “I have an issue with a boy.”

“Okay,” Jamilla said and then her lip twitched and then she lost the battle not to laugh.

“It’s not funny!”

“Sorry!” Jamilla said, holding her hands up. “But, c’mon, you have to admit it’s a little funny. _You_ have a boy problem. _You_ who always said there was no way you were even thinking about boys or marriage until you’d finished university and called me crazy when Achraf and I got engaged.”

“Okay, so it’s a little funny. But it’s not really a situation that has a happy ending.”

Jamilla frowned. “Why not?”

“Nothing can happen. The boy I like isn’t Muslim.”

“Oof. Who is it?”

“Dani Soto.”

“Cris’ brother?!” Jamilla exclaimed with wide eyes. “Girl, their mum would kill you!”

The reaction was exactly what Amira needed as it cracked her up. Mama Soto would definitely murder her if she ever got together with Dani. Not that she could get together with Dani but still. 

However, once the laughter stopped, the crushing feeling inside her chest was back. “What am I going to do? I can’t stop thinking about him and it’s starting to affect how I am around Cris.”

Jamilla looked at her with sad eyes and finally said, “You have to ride it out, Mimi. There’s no way your parents would ever accept him-.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t accept him,” Amira interrupted. “He’s not Muslim. There’s nothing more important to me than my faith. I couldn’t go against it and be with someone who doesn’t share that aspect of me.”

“Then you have to let the feelings work themselves out. Just try and not be around him.”

“I’m trying and it’s causing a small wedge between me and Cris, which is killing me,” she said with despair. “Cris and I have been through everything together and not being able to share this with her hurts so much. She asked me outright what was wrong and I said I couldn’t tell her yet.”

“I’m sure Cris will understand. You guys have been friends forever and have gone through rough patches before.”

“But what if I can only get over Dani if I never go over to her house. Already I only go when I know he’s not there. Even just seeing his coat hanging up or his things lying around makes my heart skip a beat.”

“Oh _habiba_ ,” Jamilla said, getting up and moving next to her so she could hug her. “I know it’s hard but you are the strongest person I know. You will get through this.”

A tear ran down her cheek as Amira lay her head on Jamilla’s shoulder. “Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with one of Soufiane’s friends?”

“Well...Soufiane’s friends are all dumbasses that’s probably why.”

Amira gave a watery chuckle. “True.” 

The support and warmth of her soon to be sister-in-law gave her the idea that everything would be fine for the first time since she’d fallen for Dani. Just telling someone about her dilemma and someone who understood that it wasn’t as simple as love conquers all eased some of the burden that had been weighing her down. It gave her hope that she would get through this.

\---------

A week later and Amira was feeling more positive. She had managed to hold her feelings down enough that Cris hadn’t thrown her any more searching looks or ask any more awkward questions that she couldn’t answer. She was confident that she had this. She could master her emotions and get past this inconvenience and everything would go back to normal. 

“Amira!” a familiar and unwanted voice called out behind her. “Amira, hold up!”

With dread, she slowed her steps and turned round to find exactly who she was trying to avoid forever hurrying up to her.

“Hey,” Dani said, his face lighting up in a smile that had her heart beating way too fast.

“Hi,” she replied, subdued.

“Where have you been? It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”

“Oh, I’ve been around,” she said vaguely.

“Yeah? Everything’s okay? Cris said you’d been feeling a little down recently.”

This was precisely what she didn’t want. For Dani to show he cared.

“I’m good. Just some things on my mind.”

“It’s been ages since I last saw you. You don’t come over anymore! I’ve been left fending for myself against Cris and Joana. And they never want to get up early and go grab coffee.”

Flashbacks of their weekend away when she had spent more time alone in his company than ever before. The way he was always up for a walk or just to meander down to the shops to look around or drink coffee. Cris was such a night owl who liked to go out and party, which just wasn’t Amira’s scene anymore so it had been nice to have Dani there. If only her fondness for his company hadn’t grown into much more then they could still hang out. But that was not even a possibility anymore. Not if she was going to get over this stupid crush. 

“I’ve had a lot of things on - you know with school and stuff.”

Dani’s smile dropped at her lukewarm words and he frowned a little at her,searching her face for clues with an all too percipient look in his eyes. She knew she sounded cold and she hated having to be that way but she needed to put distance between them for her own heart’s sake.

“You know I wanted to talk to you about something. Do you think you have time now?”

“Talk to me?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of been playing on my mind.”

For all that her brain was screaming at her to refuse - to walk away and get on with her life. She couldn’t ignore the pleading look on his face. The way his eyes begged her for a few moments of her time. 

“Sure.”

They wandered over to a small bench that sat among the flowers facing down the hill towards Madrid. She had always liked this part of the park. It had felt like a small oasis of peace in the bustling city. 

They sat, Amira sitting straight forward and stiff whereas Dani hooked one leg over his knee and half faced her. She couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of her eye that his hands twisted and fidgeted constantly - a sure sign that he was nervous. 

“I’ve been hoping to see you,” he started, his voice pitched low and intimate. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while but then you never came over anymore and I didn’t think anything of it, just that you must be busy and I would get my chance later. But now I can’t help but notice how you won’t look at me and you’re being so stiff and cold so I can’t help but think that you don’t come over anymore because of me.”

His words gutted her, ripping into her soul and churning her emotions around. She didn’t want to hurt Dani and she really didn’t want him to think she hated him. 

“Dani, I-” she started to say.

“No, please, let me just get this off my chest because it’s been eating me alive and there’s only so many times I can ask Cris about you before she started scrunching her face up and warning me not to mess with your feelings. But I don’t want to mess with your feelings, Amira. I want to tell you about _my_ feelings and just how-” he stopped, his words stuttering to a halt as he looked intensely at her and drew in a deep breath. “Just how much I love you.”

Her heart stopped. Skipped at least two beats before it thumped back into action so heavily that all she could hear for a few moments was the blood pounding in her ears. Had she heard him correctly? “I’m sorry,” she said, dazedly. “Did you say you love me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and she couldn’t help but notice how the tips of his ears were bright red. “Yeah,” he replied, a little sheepishly. “I don’t even know when it happened but I know when I realised. In Zaorejas. But I think I’ve had feelings for you longer.”

“No,” she said, getting up abruptly and shifting her weight between both legs. “No. No, no, no. You can’t say this to me, Dani.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, getting up too and standing in front of her. Just close enough that she could reach out to him and tangle her fingers into his t-shirt if she wanted. And she wanted. 

“We,” she said, pointing her fingers from him to her. “We cannot do this. It’s not possible and I was okay with that. I could deal with that when I thought it was just me. That I was the only crazy person here.”

His eyes shot to hers and she could see the hope in them and it pulled at her heartstrings. “Do you mean that you have feelings for me, too? That you love me, too?”

“Ugh,” she groaned before slumping back down on the bench, her hands over her face. Silence stretched between the two of them. 

“Amira, please,” Dani finally said. “Look at me. Tell me what you are thinking.”

Taking her hands away from her eyes, she saw that he crouched before her now with a look of desperation on his face that she recognised because it was the same look she wore whenever she thought about him and their situation. 

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I love you, too.” 

A radiant smile blossomed across his face and she wanted to revel in it. In the comfort that he felt for her what she did for him, but she knew that down that road lay nothing but heartache and disaster. 

“It’s not a good thing,” she said sadly. “I can’t do anything about these feelings. You’re right, I have been avoiding you and it’s because nothing can come of this love.”

“What? Why not? Would your dad object? I thought Uncle Abdessalam liked me.”

“He does and he has nothing to do with this. We can’t do anything with these feelings. They cannot go anywhere. I can’t be with you.”

“There’s a lot of cannots in your words and I don’t understand why.”

“Because I can’t be with a non-Muslim, Dani.” she said bluntly. “There’s no future for me there.”

He reared back and hurt flickered across his face. “You won’t even try because I am not the right religion. You would deny us because of that?”

Amira nodded. 

“Don’t you think you’re being a little narrow minded? You’re shutting us down without even giving us a chance.”

Irritation spread through her veins. “No, I won’t give us a chance because I know where this leads. I’ve seen it among friends. Yes, I’m in love with you and say I put that first. I decide that love overcomes everything and we should make a go of this - see where it leads. What happens a year down the line, two or three or even five years down the line and we’re still in love? I cannot marry you. I cannot have a long term future with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I cannot marry you in the eyes of Allah. It means living with you, taking my hijab off in front of you would be _haram_. More than that, I want a Muslim by my side. Someone who shares in all aspects of my life. Someone who will help me get up for Fajr, who struggles with me to fast on those hot days when your mouth is so dry you can’t even imagine ever feeling hydrated again, someone who will come on hajj with me and will teach our kids suras from the Qur’an with me. Someone who understands how light my heart gets when I hear the Adhaan and the peace that fills my soul when I pray and how close to Allah I feel during those moments. Things that my parents and Achaf have.”

She tailed off, tears in her eyes as she saw how slumped his shoulders were. Their eyes caught and she couldn’t look away, not even when one or two traitorous tears spilled over and down her cheeks. 

“My faith is everything to me,” she said. “It brings me comfort on days when nothing else can. My decision to stop partying and take my religion more seriously wasn’t something that I did on a whim. Wearing a hijab isn’t an easy choice in Europe. It singles me out, opens me up to ignorance and hurtful words, but not once since wearing it have I wanted to take it off. Not even on the hardest of days.”

“I don’t want you to change, Amira. I admire how strong you are. How you stuck to your convictions even when others were questioning if you’d been radicalised or something.”

“I know,” she said tremulously. “I think that’s why it’s been so easy to fall for you. You support me no matter what.”

“But you would have to change if you were with me,” he said shrewdly. 

She nodded. “As much as you wouldn’t ask it of me, I would.”

He stood then, a resigned expression on his face. “I understand.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I could never hate you, Amira Naybet. Not in a million years. You wouldn’t be the girl I loved if you didn’t make this decision. Your faith makes you who you are and who you are is who I love.”

The tears came thick and fast then. She knew in her gut that she was making the right decision and his words showed that he knew she was, too. However, it didn’t take away from the heartache of it all. She wished more than anything that they had never stumbled down this road, but they had and this was the inevitable end. 

Dani turned to leave, took two steps away from her before turning his head back and saying, “Don’t be a stranger.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> glossary:  
> Assalamu wa’alaykum = peace be upon you - Muslim greeting  
> Wa'alaykum assalam = and peace be upon you - Muslim reply to above greeting  
> Labas = how are you (Moroccan) - is used like the French Ca Va.  
> habiba = darling (Moroccan)  
> Alhamdullilah = praise be to God - Muslim phrase used in many instances


End file.
